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I feel like I'm going to throw up

Sean Miller Fan

Lair Hall of Famer
Oct 30, 2001
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I forgot what its like to have this feeling. Haven't felt this way since the Wisconsin loss in 2016. So I guess, in a way, I'm appreciative of this feeling but man does it suck. When your team is as bad as they've been for 6 years, fans dont take losses as hard, at least I dont because the team isnt playing for anything. So, right now this feels really really bad. I'm not going to rag on the team but we all knew we were likely to lose at least one of these Quad 4 games. I've been posting about that but hoping we could avoid it. I think its completely idiotic that a home game vs a team ranked 161 is weighted the same as a home game vs 345. I think its idiotic that the committee will evaluate our games vs Florida State and Alabama State the same way. But I also am super pissed that FSU effed up their non-con as bad as they did. 2-9??? Losses to Stetson, Troy, Siena, UCF??? WTF, that team has talent. More talent than we do, to be honest. I used to rip Leonard Hamilton all the time for being that Mark Gottfried/Lorenzo Romar recruit but cant coach guy but he's won recently. But, man, how did these guys eff up this bad? Their eff ups might cost us the NCAAT as stupid as that is.

As it is, this team is OUT of the NCAAT for the time being. The Quad 4 loss is a killer. It also might warrant us going 14-6. So 8-3 the rest of the way might be what's required and that doesn't seem possible. Just a crusing loss and a game they had at 15-5 and 48-45. Probably the best path to the tournament now is going 13-7, beating the 10 seed or whatever in Greensboro and either upsetting like a 2 or 3 seed or losing that game and hoping you did enough.

These next 2 have almost become must-wins now and Miami is a lot better than us.

Need

Wake W
Miami W
@ UNC L
Lou W
@ FSU W
BC W
@ VT L (not beating them now that Catoor is back)
GT W
Syr W
@ Miami L
@ ND W

0 margin for error. Its been a fun season but its hard to see a path now.
 
Fortunately the committee is made up of humans so they certainly have the ability to understand that a loss to FSU is not the same as another Q4 team.

I think they have the ability to overcome this. Anyone that thought Pitt could navigate the entire season and win every game it was supposed to wasn’t being realistic.
 
It sucks that FSU was as bad as they were early on in their OOC slate. Think they had some guys hurt? Still, really should’ve won that game at home.
 
I still see their max is 13 and probably not enough. It would suck and even worse when we see the teams 60+ that get in. But it’s still too early I think.
 
That game was a real turd smoker… that’s for sure….

Really needed to win that one
 
Need

Wake W
Miami W
@ UNC L
Lou W
@ FSU W
BC W
@ VT L (not beating them now that Catoor is back)
GT W
Syr W
@ Miami L
@ ND W

That's a very rough
road ahead of us. It
would be great to do
the scenario you showed.
UNC, VT, WF, and Miami
twice, could all easily be
five losses. Your wish
list has us with only three
losses. I hope you're right,
but.......

I've watched them, and
IMO they all have more
talent than we do. As we
saw today, any of the other
"lesser" teams could also
hang a loss on us, (well maybe
not L'ville) We come out of
that ending with six or seven
wins and IMO, we get an NIT
bid. We're gonna have to
light it up to get a NCAA bid.
 
Last edited:
That's a very rough
road ahead of us. It
would be great to do
the scenario you showed.
UNC, VT, WF, and Miami
twice, could all easily be
five losses. Your wish
list has us with only three
losses. I hope you're right,
but.......

I've watched them, and
IMO they all have more
talent than we do. As we
saw today, any of the other
"lesser" teams could also
hang a loss on us, (well maybe
not L'ville) We come out of
that ending with six or seven
wins and IMO, we get an NIT
bid. We're gonna have to
light it up to get a NCAA bid.

I was saying that's what we have to do, 8-3 to guarantee a bid now that we have a Q4 loss. FSU isn't terribly far from Q3. They need to move up about 40 spots and if they can finish 9-11, 10-10, you'd think they could move up to Q3 which would help us immensely.
 
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I was saying that's what we have to do, 8-3 to guarantee a bid now that we have a Q4 loss. FSU isn't terribly far from Q3. They need to move up about 40 spots and if they can finish 9-11, 10-10, you'd think they could move up to Q3 which would help us immensely.
I know what you were
saying. All I was pointing
out was how difficult it
would be. I would like 8-3
as much as you. Your point
about FSU wont even matter
if we don't win eight or more
and that's a pretty tall order.
 
They got beat the way they had been beating everyone else, FSU shot 50% from 3 and Pitt's 3-point shooting cooled off. I can't complain, it's been nice for a change to be the team knocking down 3s. As far as I'm concerned making any tournament would be great, if it's the NCAAs fine, but an NIT run of a few games would be just as fun. I'd ignore the NCAAs and focus on the NIT :)
 
Nobody wants to give up on the NCAA tournament yet, including me, but I pretty much have and am hoping for an invite to the NIT. Here is why: When your team is sufficienly flawed like ours, and I am mostly referring to our inside game on both ends, teams start to take advantage of your weaknesses and learn to minimize your strengths.
Teams like ours have come apart at the end of seasons each year due to our inability to show much flexibility or change in anyway. Coaches are pretty good in this league, and know to beat us you must keep our guards out of the lane. Granted it is our strength and the reason we have been able to be as successful as we have. To finish strong, we are going to have to move the ball better and not rely solely on clear outs for Burton. In addition, we won the Cuse game and the NW game pretty much solely by raining threes. Lately, whether we are tired or not, we have not been a good 3 point shooting team, missing plenty of open ones. If we want to have a good 2nd half of the ACC schedule, we will have to outshoot our opponents from 3.
As for defense, it has to improve as well. We are not going to win games when we give up 19-2 runs. I realize bad offense is part of a run like that, but, you can't let a team make a bucket on 8 or 9 consecutive trips down the floor. There is room for improvement on D, but it hasn't been that bad.
Lastly, I would just say that we need our offense to execute at a high level to finish strong. Ordinarily, I would say rely on your strengths, but, now that it is clear how to stop us, I think we need to show a different look. Are we capable??? I don't know, but unless we move the ball and shoot the 3 ball at 40% plus, our talent level is such that we finish no better than 12-8 in conference. Just my two cents. Thoughts???
 
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